SRECs

What is an SREC?

A Solar Renewable Energy Credit, or SREC, is issued by the state of Maryland to compensate solar owners when they have produced one megawatt-hour (MWh) of energy from their solar energy system.

A state-regulated consortium, PJM-GATS, is authorized to issue SRECs to meet the state’s renewable portfolio standard (RPS) to provide annual goals of achieving a certain amount of renewable energy each year.

Local utilities, such as PEPCO and BGE, are legally obligated to purchase renewable energy to attain the RPS goals. They do this by purchasing SRECs through PJM-GATS.

Aggregators such as HighCastle Solar record the monthly production of solar energy for their clients on PJM-GATS. Once a client has produced one MWh we create an SREC and sell it to a broker and issue the proceeds to the client, for a flat five percent commission.

HighCastle Solar does not attempt to “time” the market; we simply sell the SRECs at the going rate, or “spot” price, since SREC prices are highly volatile and difficult to predict. This is the case because the SREC market is driven by supply and demand, as well as RPS levels that vary widely based on legislative actions.

Contact HighCastle Solar to learn more registering, monitoring and trading your SRECs if you have a solar energy system.